No Gunplay, Just Wordplay, With a Cowboy Named 'Palindrome'   Our New Year's tradition: A musical skit by the group Riders in the Sky about a cowboy armed with a little straw hat and a strange way of speaking

'Merry Christmas' vs. 'Happy Holidays': More Than a Simple Choice of Words   The paradox of a social greeting that is designed not to offend anyone yet, by its very design, offends some people: why they are unhappy with "Happy Holidays"

New Standards Aim to Strengthen Curriculum for English Learners in U.S.   Kathleen Leos of the U.S. Department of Education explains federal efforts to require states to make sure students are proficient in academic English, not just communicative skills

T Is for Trouble: Consonants Lead to Dissonance for an English Learner   English teacher Lida Baker in Los Angeles answers a question from a listener who wants to know how to pronounce the letter "t" after a stressed syllable

Front Matter Matters: How to Start a Relationship With Your Dictionary   "Lexicographers spend a lot of time and effort writing the introduction to the dictionary," says Erin McKean of Oxford University Press. Second of two parts.

What Does It Say About You if Your Doppelganger Is Facinorous?   Find out from Anu Garg, author of "Another Word A Day: An All-New Romp Through Some of the Most Unusual and Intriguing Words in English"

A Guide to Writing, Now Illustrated: Stylish New Look for 'Elements of Style'   A new edition of Strunk and White's classic work comes whimsically illustrated by the artist Maira Kalman, inspired by examples in the book

Small Talk: Think of It as an 'Appetizer' for a Full Meal of Conversation   Debra Fine, author of the new book "The Fine Art of Small Talk," offers advice about how to start conversations and keep them going

In Oregon, 'Heritage Speakers' of Farsi Get to Learn From a Young Native   Musa Nushi, trained as an English teacher, will spend 10 months in the U.S. through a program of the Institute of International Education.

Getting Ready for the Speaking Section on the New TOEFL   "We've spent about 10 years developing the test, and we've changed the theoretical underpinning of the test itself": second of two parts.

The Test of English as a Foreign Language Gets a Makeover

Literary Voice: Don't Parrot Cliches, but Do Read, Read, Read   Professor Ben Yagoda says what sets writers apart most "is the extent to which that writer is more of a spoken writer or a written writer." Second of two parts.

'We're Americans, We're Not Refugees'   A report on the origins of the term "refugee," and the dispute over the use of that word to describe victims displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Language From the Sea, and Still Fresh After All These Years   A best-of-Wordmaster: maritime terms in everyday English. We talked to Alan Hartley, an independent researcher for the Oxford English Dictionary.

If You Could Care Less About Common Errors in English ...   ... then your interest probably won't center around the work of Paul Brians at Washington State University. But if you need any help at all, its useful.

How a Secret-But-Not-So-Secret Code Let Women in China Share Hardships   American novelist Lisa See, in "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan," tells about a written language used by women in a remote part of 19th-century China.

Does It Matter if Stocks 'Climb' Rather Than 'Bounce Back'?   Yes, says Michael Morris of Columbia University. A study found that metaphors used in the media to describe price trends can influence expectations.

Talking to Teens (and Getting a Reply)   "Parents sometimes feel fearful of their teenager, so they hang on to what they learned when they got their M.B.A.," child psychiatrist Elizabeth Berger says.

Gerunds vs. Infinitives, Part 2   English teacher Lida Baker offers a strategy to make it easier to learn which verbs take a gerund, which verbs take an infinitive and which verbs can take either.

Gerunds vs. Infinitives, Part 1   English teacher Lida Baker in Los Angeles talks about when to use the infinitive form of a verb, when to use the gerund form, and when it's OK to use either one.

Language of Showbiz   The show business trade paper Variety turns 100 this year, and it continues to vex and amuse its readers with a language all its own. Reporter Gloria Hillard explains from H'w'd.

Speaking of Alabama, Part 2   "I think that a lot of the losing of the language is out of embarrassment, the fear of feeling like or sounding like you're less intelligent," Donna Akins says.

Speaking of Alabama, Part 1   Donna Akins is an observer of language, though just for her own interest. She is proud of her Southern linguistic roots, and she worries that the local dialect is dying.

June 22, 2005 - Emotion in Words   Think of how many emotions our voices are able to convey. English teacher Lida Baker says meaning changes by modifying the tone of voice in subtle ways.

June 15, 2005 - Hawaiian Language, Part 2   Students at Anuenue Hawaiian Immersion School speak Hawaiian in school and also learn Hawaiian chants and ancient ways of conflict resolution.

June 8, 2005 - Hawaiian Language, Part 1   Leilani Basham is the coordinator of the Hawaiian language program at the University of Hawaii, where nearly 1,400 students are taking Hawaiian language courses.

June 1, 2005 - U.S. Academic Writing Style, Part 2   M.I.T.'s Jane Dunphy says: "Read. I think that you develop instincts that are very hard to learn if you sit down and try to memorize or try to learn them through translation."

May 25, 2005 - U.S. Academic Writing Style, Part 1   "Grad students often come here without ever having had to write a document. Never in English, often in their own language, they haven't had to really write anything," says Jane Dunphy at M.I.T.

May 18, 2005 - 'Do You Speak American?'   Journalist and author Robert MacNeil explores language changes in America, 20 years after he wrote "The Story of English."

May 11, 2005 - Audience Mail   We answer questions from two Indonesian listeners. And we talk to a former listener who found her English language skills as an American in demand while living in Moscow.

May 4, 2005 - Meet Two More English Teachers   "There are many, many Chinese people who want to learn English, but most of the contents of the textbooks are out-of-date," says teacher Qu Gang. We also talk to the manager of the College of Micronesia-FSM radio station.

April 27, 2005 - Compounding in English   "Compounding is when we take two words in English and we put them together to make a brand-new word," explains English teacher Lida Baker in Los Angeles.

April 20, 2005 - Pronunciation of North American English   Colleen Meyers, co-author of the "Pronunciation for Success" program for non-native English speakers, offers some advice.

April 13, 2005 - Meet Two Young English Teachers   Niso Mamatkulova, from Uzbekistan, says students need a lot of freedom. Sam Ahmad, an American, wants to teach and travel. So why is he in law school?

April 6, 2005 - Conversational Styles and Sports   English teacher Susan Steinbach uses sports analogies to describe three styles found in different parts of the world: bowling, basketball and rugby.

March 16, 2005 - Memory Improvement "In addition to the epiphany of learning that until you learn it you can't forget it, I think the other thing to realize about memory is that it takes a tremendous amount of discipline," says trainer Wendi Eldh.

March 9, 2005 - Interview with an English Learner in Iran   Atefeh, an English literature student at an Iranian university, describes her own strategy for learning the language.

March 2, 2005 - Linguistic Profiling   "Although most learners of English as a second language aren't aware of this, it's virtually impossible to learn English without learning some dialect of English," says linguist Walt Wolfram.

February 22, 2005 - Greetings in the U.S.   English teacher Lida Baker in Los Angeles discusses some of the ways that Americans say hello, from the casual "hey" to the formal "how do you do?"

February 16, 2005 - Emotion Words   Penn State Professor Robert Schrauf discusses findings that 50 percent of the words most commonly associated with emotions are negative, 30 percent positive and 20 percent neutral.

February 9, 2005 - Pretentious Language   Ken Smith has written his second book attacking "junk English," but admits: "If you speak precisely in idiomatic American English, it almost sounds pretentious."

February 2, 2005 - Internet Terms   Online users may be annoyed, amused or simply resigned to all the words that pop up in technical lingo, only to cross over into everyday speech.

January 26, 2005 - Questions About Pronunciation and Style   English teacher Lida Baker answers a question from Iran about the difference between U.S.A. and USA, and one from China involving voiced and voiceless sounds.

January 19, 2005 - Interview with William Labov: Sound Change, Part 2   "People used to think that the American dialects are the result of all the immigrants coming in. And that turns out to be just the opposite," says the linguist William Labov.

January 12, 2005 - Interview with William Labov: Sound Change, Part 1   We talk with William Labov, the prominent linguist at the University of Pennsylvania, about the "Northern Cities Shift" and other differences in dialects in the United States.

December 29, 2004 - Top 10 Words Looked Up Online in 2004   Peter Sokolowski, an editor at Merriam-Webster, lists the top words looked up in 2004 in the company's online dictionary.

January 5, 2005 - 'Palindrome'   Our New Year tradition: Riders in the Sky with the ballad of a cowboy who has a strange way of speaking.